In a time when we can't all gather around a table, we can still come together as a community. We're Open Indy is a partnership between WRTV and our local restaurants and businesses with one goal: getting them through this tough time. Every day, we will help shine a light on the businesses that make up our community by telling their stories and rallying around those who are keeping the grills going, the hospitals running, and the businesses operating.

INDIANAPOLIS — A bakery that exclusively serves French macarons is making sure hospitals, doctor's offices, and frontline healthcare workers in five different cities have a little something to smile about amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"Right when cases of the coronavirus were picking up in the U.S., and businesses were being immediately affected, we knew lots of people had health care workers in their lives, and we knew they were starting to get a pretty hard hit," Nathan Sivitz, co-owner and executive chef of Macaron Bar, said. "We knew we wanted (to do) whatever we could to brighten someone's day."

The Macaron Bar — in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville and Pittsburgh — is delivering free boxes of macarons to our local healthcare personnel.

So far, a total of 3,500 macarons have been donated to front line health workers.

When Sivitz and his company first started delivering free boxes of macarons to area hospitals and healthcare offices, it was all out of their own pockets.

Courtesy of the Macaron Bar

Courtesy of Anjali Fong Photography

"We were just doing it ourselves, but now we are allowing our customers, and people, the option to contribute to the contributions we're making," Sivitz said.

They're now receiving requests every day from nurses, family members of healthcare professionals, and others that would like to donate boxes to their essential local workers.

"We're going to keep doing it," Svitiz said.

A big motivator for Sivitz and his partners to keep Macaron Bar open in all three cities was to keep their bakers baking.

"We knew our demand, for our macarons, from customers, were going to go down dramatically, and this was a way to have our bakers continue baking ... rather than just stopping," Sivitz said. "So, it helps us keep our staff employed."

Now, not only are the Macaron Bar baker receiving requests for box donations, but they're also still baking for their customers.

"We have a great core team of bakers, and right now the sales that we have are supporting their wages, and so as long as we can, we're going to try to keep our team employed, as best we can," Sivitz said.

Macaron Bar patrons can not physically go into the shops, but they can have macarons shipped or ordered over the phone, as the team of bakers are doing no-contact curbside pickup.

"We've seen the response from our customers when they find out we're still open and their very grateful because macarons are a small indulgence that people can still enjoy at home right now, through all of this," Sivitz said.

Macaron Bar was first established in Cincinnati in 2014. They first expanded to Louisville in 2016, then to Pittsburgh in 2017 and Indianapolis in 2018. The recently opened up shop in Columbus, Ohio.